


The Unfortunate Truth About Food

by Mikiri



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adults getting the wrong idea, Anaphylaxis, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Delirium, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hunk (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Hunk has food allergies, I wrote this 8 months ago, I'm totally projecting, Long-Distance Friendship, OTPlease Zine, Other, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Canon, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Projecting?, Queerplatonic Relationships, Robotics, Robotics Competitions, Social Anxiety, hell if i remember anymore, i'm not projecting, mentions of anorexia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 09:45:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17281712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikiri/pseuds/Mikiri
Summary: Hunk's life had always been about food, but not from his own choice. Living with food allergies growing up made his life be all about food. Eventually it became less of a counterpoint and more of a fact about himself, at least until he ended up being blasted into space with no way home.





	The Unfortunate Truth About Food

Hunk clung to the title of gourmand like it was a shield in a rain of arrows. It was his defence, his shield, from the negativity of being called a “picky eater” because while Hunk  _ was _ a picky eater, it was for a reason. 

 

Hunk had been young when he had first been tested for food allergies, and he was allergic to a  _ lot _ of things. Most of his time in school was spent avoiding food everyone else made, for he had no way of knowing it was safe for him to eat. Once in third grade, a teacher saw his lunch and how different it was from the other kids and called him “a little gourmand,” and he took to the word as children are prone to and made it part of who he was. 

 

Once Hunk had set his armor, had gotten a reputation for only eating strange, exotic foods he began to fit in better again. Sure he still didn’t eat food the other kids brought and wouldn’t share his own, but with his reputation in place it became expected, just another thing that made Hunk, Hunk. The title, the reputation started preceding him, and while he would get bullied for being overweight, the teasing and stealing of his food petered out into almost nothing. 

 

And life went on. Hunk discovered machines, math, engineering, robotics, and space. They became things for Hunk to be passionate about without the pressure of having to be good at it. Sure, Hunk loved cooking and he was good at it, but it was a necessary skill he’d been cultivating since his diagnosis. There was little premade and easy to make food that he could eat with his allergies, so he  _ had  _ to learn about making his own food. To him, learning about engineering was the want to learning cooking’s need.

 

He joined a local robotics team in middle school and was presented with a familiar problem, if he wanted to stay after for build days or go to competitions he would need to supply himself with food. He started packing himself extra lunches, but with the lack of available refrigeration, he was struggling to bring enough food. Eventually one of the assistant coaches noticed that Hunk didn’t eat dinner with everyone else and regularly worked through the dinner break, and pulled him aside. 

 

“Hunk, I’ve noticed a disturbing pattern in your eating habits of late.” The coach said, trying to look friendly and approachable and not quite succeeding, “I don’t know if it’s because you’re trying to lose weight, or you’re just feeling antisocial, but Hunk, skipping meals in bad for you. Especially at this point in your life-”

 

Hunk rolled his eyes and interrupted the coach before he had to listen to this lecture again, this wasn’t the first time someone had pulled him aside due to his presumed eating habits, “Mr. Nick-”

 

“-dieting is extremely harmful. Ah, yes Hunk?” Mr Nick asked, finally pausing his lecture.

 

Hunk took a deep breath, “I’m not trying to lose weight, or be antisocial, or whatever. I’m allergic to all the things that you guys offer for dinner. So instead of going to dinner and tormenting myself with the smells of food I can’t eat, I eat dinner in here and work on the controls. The rest of my group knows, so they tend to come back early. It’s  _ fine. _ ” 

 

Nr. Nick gave Hunk a penetrating stare, as if he could perceive if Hunk was lying by sheer force of stare alone. Hunk sighed and turned back to the drivetrain of the robot, trying to perfect its functionality through mental math alone. Eventually he reached into his backpack sitting on the floor next to him and got a snack out of his lunchbox, pointedly glancing over at Mr. Nick before making a big show of starting to eat.

 

Over the next week Hunk’s teammates reported that the food available for dinner had been changing, but Hunk was still suspicious. A similar change had happened when he had joined a club in elementary school and everything had been fine, until one day one of the moms providing food hadn’t been careful enough and Hunk had ended up in the hospital on a drip providing nutrients for a week. Since then Hunk had become far more paranoid about his food and would only eat things he saw prepared in front of him.

 

Eventually they approached the thing Hunk was looking forward to and dreading the most, weekend robotics competitions. There was no way he could pack enough food for the entire weekend, so he would have to rely on the good will and hopeful common sense of others to feed him, and it was making him  _ anxious. _ His mother would be coming with him as one of the chaperones, but he could already hear the taunting jeers of how he was a mommy’s boy who couldn’t live without her for even a weekend, echoing in his head endlessly like a bad record.

 

The drive up on Friday night was anxiety inducing and exhausting, first they had to put all of their gear on the bus, then double check the build area to make sure no parts of the robot had been forgotten when it had been boxed and shipped days earlier, then load all of the fidgeting and excited children onto a school bus and drive for four hours with only two bathroom stops. Hunk nearly burst into tears when they finally arrived at the hotel for the night, except then he had to consider the fact that he couldn’t just head to bed, no! They had to go out to eat and then go over to the stadium to unbox the robot.

 

The restaurant that had been chosen was one of those large, old time-y diners that made Hunk cry when he looked at the menu and found nothing to eat that wouldn’t require essentially making an entirely different meal for him to eat. After ordering his drink, he left to go hide in the bathroom while he cried in sheer frustration because he knew this was going to happen, he knew it. 

 

He took a few minutes to compose himself before he went to rejoin the rest of the team, none of whom had seemingly picked up on his distress other than his mother. When the waitress came back around to get their orders Hunk waived her off saying, “I’m not hungry, thanks though.”

When food finally appeared, Hunk was greatly surprised when a plate was put in front of him, he turned to look up at the waitress who winked, “Your mom called ahead so we would have time to plan it out, Cheffie thought it was a great challenge hon. We have your meals planned for the weekend, so don’t worry.”

 

Hunk gave her a watery smile and said sincerely, “Thank you so much,” before digging into the plate she brought full of gently seasoned chicken and pan fried squash. Sure it was a simple meal, especially compared to what Hunk cooked at home, but it was good and Hunk could feel the tears gathering in the corner of his eyes in relief that his mother had made sure he would be taken care of. With the weight of his food based anxiety off his chest he happily joined in the discussion with the drive team about tactics for matches the next day. 

The night came and went, unboxing the robot revealed no damage from transit which made everyone excited for matches the next day. After setting up their pit space, the chaperones herded them back onto the bus and after a short trip, back into the hotel with strict orders to be ready to go back to the stadium at 7 am. Hunk set out his clothes for the next day, his blue team shirt and khakis, and went to bed ignoring the other boys excited chatter in exchange for extra sleep. 

Hunk was bright eyed and bushy tailed as they entered the stadium at 7:30 am, the building charged with barely suppressed energy, the excitement of hundreds of kids and teens feeding into each other in a perpetual loop of endless energy. For Hunk, as one of the pit technicians the weirdest feeling was the strange lull that occurred when the robot was actually at a match instead of the frantic energy when the robot was present to work on. He sighed and considered asking one of the chaperones if he could go wandering to see if any of the other teams needed an extra engineer when a latino boy of similar age walked up.

“Hi! I’m Lance, I’m from Team 1425, the Energizers. We’re part of your next alliance and wanted to come say hi! Or well, I’m part of our PR squad and I’m helping with tours today and I’m scoping out cool pits to bring the important old people to and you seem cool!” Lance said, hands waving everywhere as he spoke, like he was a faucet of energy that couldn’t help but overflow.

Hunk smiled and held out a hand, “Hi Lance! I’m Hunk of Team 1010, the Binary Battlers.” Hunk’s smile widened as Lance shook his hand firmly, but then didn’t let go, “It’s nice to meet you, the robot’s not here right now obviously, but I can talk about our normal strategy if you want?”

Lance made a face, “I’d say sure, but I’m in PR for a reason and I’d get it all mixed up when I tried to report back so I’ll drag one of our drivers over in a few.” Lance bounced, swinging their joined hands back and forth, “I’ll be honest, you looked lonely and I wasn’t doing anything so I came to say hi.”

Hunk felt like his smile was going to split his face, it had been ages since he’d made a friend who hadn’t been assigned as a group partner beforehand. Hunk squeezed Lance’s hand, “Thanks, its, uh, really kinda lonely when everyone else is with the robot, or in the stands. I know someone has to stay with the pit, and I don’t mind! It’s just…” Hunk trailed off, unsure how to verbalize the problem.

Lance nodded solemnly, “But you do mind, you’re lonely. Well, next time come hang out in the tour area with me! I’ll keep you from getting lonely, and you can say its good inter-team relationship building. Which is apparently important according to our group leader.” Lance trailed off, frowning slightly before looking down to check his watch, “Anyways, I gotta go, but I’ll be back! Promise!”

Lance unwound their hands and darted down the aisle at just barely under a run. When he reached the end of the row he waved at Hunk before he left line of sight. 

 

An hour later, the robot had come and went and Lance had finally returned, this time with an older man following him. Lance gave Hunk a smile as he slowly lead the man over to Hunk’s pit area, obviously explaining the different aspects of the competition. Lance introduced Hunk to the man, and Hunk helped Lance explain some of the more technical parts of the competition. This pattern repeated itself several times over the course of the rest of the day, Lance apparently having decided to make Hunk be his technobabble translator for the competition. 

At the end of the day, just before awards Lance turned to Hunk and pulled out his phone, “Hey! You wanna be penpals?”

“Yeah, sure!” Hunk replied, taking out his phone. The pair exchanged numbers and danced together next to the stands to the blaring pop music that was playing while awards were calculated. Lance even followed Hunk back to the pit area to help repack the robot to send to the next competition.

 

The award ceremony passed in a blur, and when the pair finally had to be seperated, Hunk barely had to wait a full minute before his phone started going off with texts from Lance. Hunk got through dinner without even thinking about the food he was consuming for the first time since his allergy diagnosis, far too busy talking to Lance and his teammates to let his anxiety burst the high he was riding. 

 

Hunk spent most of the night texting Lance until the other seemingly fell asleep, with the ride home in the morning being more of the same. Lance talked about being the youngest of four, while Hunk talked about being an only child and growing up with food allergies. The pair bonded over the dream of attending Galaxy Garrison, Lance wanting to be a pilot and explore space, and Hunk wanting to learn to make rockets so he could help people reach the farthest corners of the known universe. 

 

The next few days of school were unexpectedly hard, Hunk had only really known Lance for a day, but he’d integrated himself so well that the sudden lack of being able to talk to him during school hours left Hunk feeling very alienated and alone. Sure Hunk had friends at school, but never ones like Lance who seemed to just accept Hunk as he was. When Hunk mentioned it to Lance during one of their late night texting sessions, Lance suggested Hunk bring cookies for everyone which would make him more popular, and Hunk would know were safe. 

 

Hunk took to the idea with gusto, bringing cookies to class once a week, experimenting with the recipes all the while. His experiments regained him his old title as a gourmand, which he learned to reuse as a shield against unwanted food. His not completely unexpected burst in popularity still wasn’t enough to quite cope with not being able to see Lance in person again until competition season again the next year. Neither of their teams had made finals, and then, while their parents supported their friendship, they hadn’t been able to visit each other over the summer.

 

However, that lack of contact wasn’t enough to cause Hunk and Lance to drift apart, when they finally saw each other again, a full year since their last meeting, it was just as before. Lance was part of the PR team again, and Hunk was still part of the Pit Crew and they hung out as much as humanly possible during the competition for they knew it would be the only time all year to hang out. And to Hunk’s joy, Lance had even brought homemade fudge for the pair to share that Lance had excruciatingly made sure would be safe for Hunk to eat. When the pair had been forced to part again at the end of the competition there had been far more clinging and promises to see each other again upon acceptance to Galaxy Garrison where they had both applied.

 

The months after passed quickly, in a flurry of texts and video calls until the day arrived. Hunk had been anxiously awaiting this moment from the moment he had gotten his acceptance letter. The Galaxy Garrison loomed overhead, the white buildings seeming so dissonant with its desert surroundings it felt like he was walking into a movie set instead of a school. He looked around at the others clustered in the lobby, most of them were wearing the cadet orange and white outfits, but some were obviously older students as seen by the patches on the shoulders of their uniforms. 

 

Hunk felt self conscious as he watched the others drift together and make groups, already falling into cliques even just upon first contact. Hunk looked around, desperately hoping for a glance of the friend he hadn’t seen in person for a year and a half. He knew Lance would be here, they had opened their acceptance letters together via video call, so it was only a matter of finding his best friend and hoping they were rooming together. He knew the rooming wasn’t likely, the Garrison had a habit of rooming people in the same track together until they had been settled into teams in their second year, but he could hope. 

 

Hunk heard something that sounded like his name shouted from the distance and turned around, only to have Lance come flying out of the crowd crying, “Hunk! Buddy! I missed you so much.”

 

Lance clung to Hunk like an octopus, seemingly unwilling to let go after their long separation. Only having one competition in robotics to see each other just wasn’t enough. Hunk clung back, just as emotional, sniffling slightly as he said, “Lance! It’s been too long, even though we were just texting.”

 

Lance leaned back slightly and smacked Hunk’s arm, “Texting isn’t the same. I need my Hunk Hug Time, and I can only get that in person.”

 

“I know buddy, I know. One competition a year is not enough, why do you have to live so far away.” Hunk said, pulling Lance back against his chest and rocking back and forth slightly, humming happily.

 

Lance pouted, but relaxed into Hunk’s hold, “I wish I didn’t, but, but! Now that we’re both here, we can see each other all the time! Hunk and Lance, the best team to ever graduate!” Lance bounced slightly, but was unwilling to back away from Hunk to gesture more articulately as he usually did.

 

Hunk hummed in agreement before adding, “You know teams have three people right? Pilot, tech, and comms, so we need to recruit another person to our greatest team ever.”

 

“Pish, that’s easy.” Lance said, voice slightly muffled from Hunk’s shirt, “Of course we’ll be friends with the best comms officer in our entire class, we’re too awesome not to be friends with.”

 

Hunk smiled and ruffled Lance’s hair, ignoring the whining protest that Lance let out before asking, “Do you know your room assignment? I haven’t checked yet.”

 

Lance nodded, “Checked just before I found you, its you, me, two other guys, uhhh, Harper Alberd, and Ari Serequi.” Lance shrugged before tightening his grip, “But at least we’re together finally, buddy.”

 

Hunk nodded again, “Finally.”

 

Hunk committed their first day at the Garrison to memory, seeing Lance, meeting his other roommates, the tour of the facilities, the realization that he had made it. He was enrolled, here to act out his dreams, and even things like allergies couldn’t stop him, or so he thought. 

 

Hunk discovered early on in his time at the Garrison that unless he wanted to live on salad all the time he would have to talk to the chef in charge of the cafeteria. Hunk had gotten braver over time, he had to in order to not get accidentally poisoned via allergies, but even still, talking to a person in charge of a kitchen that fed hundreds of people a day just seemed too intimidating. So Hunk ate plain salad out of fear for every meal until he passed out in calculus one day and woke up in the nurse's office. 

 

Hunk sat up slowly, the world wobbling in and out of focus, blackness trying to take him back, the bone deep exhaustion trying to dig itself in even further to never let go. He could barely focus on the nurse who he thought was scolding him for his eating habits. He was aware enough that when she put a package of crackers in his hands that he shouldn’t, really he  _ shouldn’t, _ consider eating them anyways, but he was so hungry that he stared at them longingly. 

 

Hunk stared at the crackers, the rational side of his internal debate about not going to the hospital was quickly losing to the side that just demanded some sort of calories to keep him going. Just as his rational side lost and he tore into the package, the door to the nurses office opened and there were quick shuffling steps that ended next to him and the package was ripped from his grasping fingers. Hunk let out a pleading whine before a package of fruit snacks was shoved into his hands instead.

 

Hunk tried to get into the package, his shaking hands working against him, before the hands who had given the package to him initially took it away again. Hunk pouted for a second before the package was put back in his hands except opened finally. Hunk had a brief debate over whether it would be better to savor the flavors or just do the socially inexcusable reaction of just eating them all at once. He settled on the compromise of eating all of the ones of the same flavor in one go so he could savor the bright bursts of flavor on his tongue.

 

Quickly, the package was empty and Hunk was pouting at it while trying to resist the increasingly strong foe that was sleep. The hands took away the empty package and helped him lean back and tucked him in. In quick order, Hunk lost the fight with sleep seeing as the hands were on the side of sleep. Maybe when he woke up he would be able to thank the hands for helping him. He would have to tell Lance about the nice pair of hands. 

 

When Hunk finally became aware again, he recognized the figure sitting by his bedside working on homework to be Lance. Hunk let himself despair internally for a moment, he’d been doing so well at hiding his eating habits from Lance but that habit was apparently coming to a smashing end. Hunk took a deep breath before asking, “How much trouble am I in buddy?”

 

Lance huffed but reached out to grab Hunk’s hand, “Well, you missed the Kerberos Mission launch that you wanted to see. You’ve actually been here overnight, I got to inform the nurse that she almost sent you to the hospital by giving you crackers. She thinks you’re anorexic just so you know-”

 

“I’m not though! Buddy, Lance, you gotta believe me. I’m not-” Hunk said, arms flailing some, trying to get across that he definitely was not having that problem.

 

Lance held up his other hand to stop the flow of words, “I know, I said ‘she thinks’ not ‘I think’ so chill please. Anyways, I’m mad at you for hiding that you haven’t been eating.” Lance took a second to look at Hunk disapprovingly, “So, I took it upon myself to talk to the cafeteria people so they’ll make you special food each meal. I gave them a list of things you’re allergic to that I know of, but you really should talk to them yourself to make sure.”

 

Hunk rubbed a thumb over Lance’s knuckles, “Thanks, I know I should have said something,  _ anything, _ but...” He trailed off, thinking for a second, “I guess it was a battle my anxiety won over my common sense.”

 

Lance rolled his eyes, “Next time, tell me and  _ I’ll _ talk to them for you. So never, ever, do that again. Got it?”

 

Hunk smiled, “Got it. Thanks buddy.” There was a short lull in the conversation that resulted in Lance going back to reading his homework while not letting go of Hunk’s hand. Then Hunk asked, “Did I really sleep through the Kerberos launch? I really wanted to see that rocket.”

 

Lance gave Hunk a consoling pat on the arm, “Yeah, sorry bro. They launched earlier today, I got to look into the records of the people they chose, and wow, Takashi Shirogane has some hella flight records. I guess that makes up for hanging out with people like  _ Keith _ instead of us. I hope I can fly that well someday.”

 

Hunk rolled his eyes, “You will, I believe in you Lance. But man, I guess I’ll have to watch the recordings then.”

 

Lance smiled as the discussion broke down into a play by play of the Kerberos launch. When Hunk was released the next morning, under strict instruction from the nurse to eat more, he was excited to go back to class. He imagined there would be more lessons on information from the Kerberos mission now that it had actually launched and was sending back data. All he knew about the piloting side was from Lance’s rantings about how apparently sending Shiro away had somehow made someone named Keith even more determined to outstrip their entire class.

 

Hunk always smiled and nodded in all of the right places, even when his heart broke at the results of the specialization testing. Lance had been regulated to being a second tier pilot, a cargo pilot apparently; while Hunk himself had accidentally scored himself into being a mission engineer instead of just one of the ship engineers. Neither of them were quite happy with the result, Lance was unhappy with being regulated into less intensive flight exercises, and Hunk was unhappy about being put in the flight exercises at all with his motion sickness.

 

They spent the next couple months commiserating together over homework while watching the news for updates about the Kerberos mission. The day the craft finally landed the news reported a mission failure due to pilot error, and Hunk’s heart went out to the families of those on the mission. Lance was obviously upset by the news due to the fact the pilot was someone he had looked up to as a role model, and now Shiro was both defamed and dead. 

 

The following week was a hectic one for the Garrison rumor mill, Keith had gotten kicked out, which let Lance advance into fighter pilot tier, a girl broke in and had to be escorted out, and they had gotten a mid semester transfer,  _ and _ Hunk and Lance were finally part of the same team. The less that was said about Commander Iverson during that week the better, for the man had gotten a black eye at the beginning of the week and then took his frustrations out on anyone who asked. Hunk spent most of his free time that week invading the cafeteria kitchen and stress baking until curfew. 

 

Slowly life returned to normal, even with the additional, rather tasteless, exercise of the Kerberos rescue mission added to the simulation list. Hunk and Lance’s simulation group were inflicted with a never ending stream of comms officers as the teachers tried to settle on flight groups. This seeming lull in strange history making events was greatly appreciated, especially once exam season rolled around. Lance had gotten clingy at about the same time due to their impending summer vacation that would keep them separated for two weeks before coming back as second years.

 

Hunks two weeks at home were a blessing, no stress, no worries about cross contamination in his food, no looming feeling of failure. Two weeks of cooking all the foods he couldn’t get at the Garrison, of visiting his old robotics team at outreach events, of sleeping in as late as he wanted, of rambling to his parents about the joys of living with his roommates and his simultaneous joy of privacy while at home. At the end of his brief summer vacation, he cried a little, but he was also excited to go back to Lance and the promise of space that the Garrison offered.

 

The first couple weeks of classes were mostly re-establishing routine, and Hunk and Lance had finally, maybe, been assigned their permanent comms officer, a boy named Pidge Gunderson. Apparently Pidge had been the mid semester transfer during last year, and was a fellow techie so Hunk tried extra hard to keep Pidge on their team. Hunk tried to snoop to learn about their new team member, a habit Lance encouraged, but Pidge was surprisingly resistant to all of their attempts at bonding as a team. Which would have been fine, except they failed the Kerberos rescue mission every time it was the simulation of the day and Hunk really wanted to know why before they all got booted down to a lower class.

 

But Pidge wouldn’t budge or volunteer information, and every time Hunk tried to snoop online, he got no results, so he eventually shelved the idea. Until the day that in Hunk’s mind changed everything. That morning he’d woken up and went to class like any other, that night he was bedding down on the floor of a shack in the middle of the desert waiting for someone who had been legally dead to wake up again. Keith didn’t really have any food Hunk could eat, other than an amusing stash of chocolate pudding, so Hunk dealt with his anxiety over both food and probably being considered a criminal at the ripe age of seventeen by indulging his curiosity and reading Pidge’s diary. 

 

Pidge’s diary confirmed Hunk’s vague theory about Pidge’s name not being Pidge, but it was mostly about some weird transmissions the other teen had been tracking. Hunk noticed this same line repeating over and over, and it seemed familiar, he just couldn’t remember why. He drifted off into an uneasy sleep while considering why it felt familiar.

 

If Hunk had thought the day before had been crazy, it had nothing on that next day. He had started the morning by making a device to find an alien compound with no food, and then ended up in an alien cat shaped spaceship and vomited three times before arriving at the strange alien castle and meeting the strange alien Princess and her advisor.  

 

By this point of the day Hunk was starving, he hadn’t really eaten since dinner the night they snuck out and he’d been sick multiple times, he eyed the floating plate of green goo nervously while trying to follow the discussion. Eventually he broke down and took a bite, if the alien food was going to kill him, might as well find out now before things got even crazier. He reached forward and took a bite and considered the taste. The texture of the goo left much to be desired, and honestly speaking, it didn’t really taste like much, rather like bland rice crackers, but it wasn’t making his throat close up so it wasn’t that bad he supposed. He ate the rest of the plateful absently while ignoring Lance and Keith argue, he loved Lance sure, but boy those two could argue like five year olds.

 

Hunk winced at the gurgling noise his stomach made in the middle of the rather serious sounding discussion about Lions, but he really couldn’t help it, and as far as involuntary reactions went, it was honestly rather mild, especially since he didn’t react further.

 

As Hunk had expected, the rest of the day had gotten crazier still. He’d had to fight for his life to get to his lion, fight to leave with his lion, have several minor panic attacks due to the looming threat overhead, fight the evil spacecraft that had been looming while Keith found his lion, try to form Voltron, have another minor panic attack, almost die, actually form Voltron, and become part of the first line of both offense and defense for the rest of the free universe. He was still reeling over the fact that he was now essentially a child soldier, guerrilla fighter, whatever, defender of the universe. He could barely defend himself, and  _ now  _ he was supposed to defend the entire universe? No, no, he wasn’t going to deal with processing that, sure he’d put on a brave face with the others but that was a not good thought process, so time for a distraction! There had to be a kitchen in the Castle somewhere, he just had to find it.

 

His investigation did eventually turn up a kitchen, with Coran already there, seemingly categorizing what had survived the unexpected ten thousand year sleep. Hunk watched, anxiously hovering near the door as Coran puttered around the kitchen, he wanted to make something, and maybe it was best to have someone around in case the space food flared his allergies, but the idea of cooking with a strange alien he’d known for less than a day made his anxiety skyrocket. Eventually Coran seemed to notice him lurking and called, “Ah yes, Number Two, Hunk was it? I thought you had all gone to bed, can I help you?”

 

Hunk fidgeted restlessly, “I. Couldn’t sleep, not yet, and normally when I can’t sleep I bake, but...” Hunk trailed off, flailing his hands to indicate the rest of the kitchen.

 

Coran seemed to understand, “Ah yes, the kitchen currently is woefully understocked, but we might be able to whip up something good if you’re willing to let this handsome old man assist!” Coran walked over and dragged Hunk over to the counter, “Now, you said baking so let’s get right to it!”

 

The cookies turned out well, at least until Hunk took a bite of one. He could feel the tingling numbness in his mouth, his throat trying to close making it hard to breathe, every anxiety he had about eating space food flaring to the front of his mind as he grasped at Coran even as the world began to go dark. 

 

He woke shivering and off balance and he flailed forward into Coran’s deceptively strong hold. Hunk glanced up as Coran frowned worriedly down at him, seemingly unsure what to do now. Hunk took a deep breath, the feeling of the air flowing in and out of his lungs uninterrupted was a relief on a level that was hard to describe. 

 

After an awkward moment of silence Hunk decided to explain, “I-I have food allergies, I have all my life, and normally I know what is safe for me. But here, out here in space, I don’t know anything about anything, all of the food is foreign and I can’t know what I'm going to react to until it happens. And,” Hunk felt frustrated tears in his eyes, the type he hadn’t cried in years, “I just wanted to relax, to feel like I could do something  _ normal _ , something like home. But, I-” Hunk’s voice died off, unable to try to explain.

 

Coran nodded sagely, but Hunk could tell he was serious, “That is a major problem, one we can minimize potentially, but one we cannot subvert entirely. All we know about humans is from our scans, and while your scans tells me many things there will always be a risk factor.” Coran explained, his voice soft and worried, “I’ll use what I’ve learned from both your reaction just now and what your initial scan to see if I can program a scanner that will help guide your food choices.”

 

Hunk gaped up at the older man, finally trying to regain control of his limbs to stand properly, and asked, “You’d do that? For me?”

 

Coran shrugged and nodded like it was a foregone conclusion, “Why of course, you’re risking life and limb for the universe, it is the least I can do is make sure the universe doesn’t accidentally kill you first.”

 

Hunk smiled widely, feeling like his face was going to break, “Thanks Coran.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This was my submission to the OTPlease zine Across the Stars. I was feeling the lack of Hunk content and decided projecting was a valid way to get a very Hunk focused piece for the zine since we could do whatever. A lot of the conversations are ones I've had with people due to my own allergies so yeah.
> 
> Anyways come scream at me on tumblr @mikiri (I should be findable) or on dreamwidth as @mikiri, or just leave a comment!


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